


Alcohol is not permitted in Central Park

by wanderNavi



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, briefly, games to play in the met: rate a room by nonexistent dicks, rats in the subway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: Say’ri knocks her shoulder into Robin’s. “Want to head over to the art museums later? Or any other museum honestly, there are plenty.”“Picnic first,” Robin says. The bottles in the bag clink with each step. There are clusters of people pumping through yoga classes and a pair of joggers pass Robin to the left. One wears a neon yellow shirt with “COACH” emblazoned on the back. It doesn’t compliment the man’s figure well.





	Alcohol is not permitted in Central Park

**Author's Note:**

> Un-betaed but dedicated to the shining star of my life, Em 
> 
> Another short piece started thanks to Camp Nanowrimo over the summer.

They go to Central Park. The tote bag – an addon from a magazine Robin unsubscribed from – is weighed down by the towel padding the bottom and the food and drinks. The straps bite into her shoulder. Yelling children play in the water fountains and playgrounds. Bikers pass them by, ignoring the Walk Your Bike On The Path signs throwing themselves across the entrances.

“Citibikes. Might be on the clock,” Say’ri comments.

Robin gives an unconvinced hum and continues to frown after the man who swerved from colliding with her in the last moment.

The weather report says that it won’t rain today, but tomorrow. The sky above is always a tint darker than Robin is used to when cloudy. The humidity feels like rain enough. The pollution from the car-clogged streets running up and down the island and all these steel and concrete and glass buildings. It presses the air in.

The pair walk over the stone jutting out in stripped curls. Part of the bedrock that supports the high towers always under construction, Robin presumes. A scattering of dusty dirt supports grass poking up along the cracks in green curls. Did the people building this great swatch of park pull the stones out of the ground? Or where they already a part of the landscape, not yet flattened down for construction? Robin doubts the latter.

“How much water does it take to keep the fields looking this pristine during the summer heat you reckon?” Robin asks Say’ri.

“I don’t know,” Say’ri says. “Perhaps plenty. Grass is the most watered crop in America.”

The path curves gently to the left. “Can grass be called a crop? We don’t harvest it the same way as say, corn or squash or yams.”

“Yes, it is a cultivated plant though.”

“Not really harvested.”

“Cultivation is probably enough to be considered a crop. We can at least say it’s the most watered plant that people grow then, if not strictly a crop.”

They walk past the ballparks and the kickball teams kicking up the sand. The trees swallow the buildings and the noise of the city around them away. Occasionally, over the canopies, glimpses of brick peek through. Humidity and possible rain notwithstanding, people blanket the fields anyways. In Sheep Meadow, all the shadows cast by the trees are full of picnickers and nappers and chatters already. On the street, a police cruiser silently rolls to a watchful stop. Bicycles fly down the slope in flocks, clicking with the sounds of gears. The birds grow louder. The dogs, quieter. The insects more numerous.

Say’ri knocks her shoulder into Robin’s. “Want to head over to the art museums later? Or any other museum honestly, there are plenty.”

“Picnic first,” Robin says. The bottles in the bag clink with each step. There are clusters of people pumping through yoga classes and a pair of joggers pass Robin to the left. One wears a neon yellow shirt with “COACH” emblazoned on the back. It doesn’t compliment the man’s figure well.

Really, there are too many people.

Under the afternoon sun’s heat, they find a patch of uneasily green grass and lay out the towel. Say’ri accepts the offered glass bottle of sparkling juice with a quiet thanks. Her fingers wrap around the slender neck and with a neat twist, the cap pops off. Robin pulls out the sandwiches. They talk.

* * *

“Rate the room by its dicks, go.”

“Robin, this room is missing all the penises. I thought that would give me respite from this game of yours”

She pats Say’ri on the back. “Well look at how clean those cuts are. Someone purposefully cut the dicks all off. Somewhere, somewhen, someone had a collection of stone antiquity dicks. Like. A box of dicks. Rate those dicks.”

“Robin –”

“I’m sure you have an excellent imagination.”

“Robin how many rooms are we going to do this in?”

Say’ri’s hands are firm in Robin’s and she tugs at her, so they can look at each other face to face. Say’ri blinks down at Robin far too patiently for what Robin’s about to say. Gods, Say’ri is too good for Robin. “The Met closes at nine. All the rooms. Every room.”

“Even the abstract landscape paintings?”

“ _Every room_.”

“Three out of ten, they’re all lacking.”

Robin breaks out laughing and leans into Say’ri’s shoulder. “Fair, fair.”

A stone warrior missing a hand looks down at them in disappointment.

Completely lost, they eventually wander into the modernist wing. Say’ri hums over the twisting colors of a set of paintings depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. Gluttony’s stomach bulges out, red and angry. Pride could use more mirrors in a shining array. The security guard turns and walks into a different room, leaving them alone with one other visitor.

Say’ri bumps her shoulder into Robin’s, breaking her out of mutterings at Wrath’s howling. After getting Robin’s attention, Say’ri says, “So, the Surrealists. Which we’re getting to in a room or so. They were completely enamored with Freud.”

“Exploration of the subconscious, makes sense.” Robin tests the motion sensors and leans closer towards the egg tempura paintings. She never really likes looking at this series, but it catches the eye and the viewer’s discomfort is part of the _point,_ so she can’t fully argue. In an afterthought, she adds, “But also fuck Freud.”

“Robin. Freud. Penis envy.”

Robin’s head whips towards Say’ri in excitement.

“Maybe a six out of ten. These are more evocative and less, ‘Oh, let’s just barely tuck it away under a fold of cloth.’ If the studies and sketches are in the full nude, it’s always a slight disappointment when the final painting hangs the cloth worse than window curtains.”

The smile on Robin’s face stretches harder and she tucks herself under Say’ri arm, flush against her side. “But also fuck Freud.”

“Yes.”

* * *

They wander up and down Fifth Avenue as night settles. Robin points into Gucci’s window display. “Imagine if your brother wore that.”

Say’ri stops and considers the chunky glasses on the mannequin and the high-saturation green tigers printed up the pants. Robin bets there’s another tiger face on the seat of the pants. “We would have to pay Yen’fay more than what it took to buy the outfit in the first place for him to put it on for even a minute. It’s far too garish.”

Even when the clock crawls towards eleven at night, the subway station isn’t completely empty. The handles of the tote bag dig into Robin’s fingers and she shifts them from hand to hand, passing the books’ weight between like so many hot potatoes. A few more minutes shift by and then the rumble of an approaching train finally echoes down the tunnels.

Slowly, the rumble rises into a scream and speculatively, Robin says to Say’ri, “When you hear a noise like that, you can believe that beasts live in the tunnel.”

Also, isn’t that train oddly slow, Robin doesn’t get to say out loud before the head of decidedly not a subway car drags down the tracks into view. The rats scatter. The dirty headlights flash. A dust stained yellow train car built in the sixties and never washed since goes past. The interior is completely clean with neat rows of seats. Another passenger car passes, then construction machinery drag pass. Both of their heads turn smoothly, silently watching the screeching metal protest back into the darkness. “Diesel only,” the sides of a car requests.

“It’s not Halloween yet.”

“Yes, but say that to the crafts stores.”


End file.
